Page 89 of Thorns of Love

Anger simmered in my veins and heat flushed through every pore of me. I scoffed. Adrian had lost his goddamn mind.

“You bought me a few years?” I asked incredulously. “I’m only twenty-seven and you’re planning on killing me.”

He remained silent, his expression dark. “How will that bring your parents back?” I tried to reason with him.

“It won’t, but it will make his life hell,” he hissed, glaring at me.

My eyes stung. Anger and ache mixed in my chest. How did we get here?

“How did you survive?” I rasped. “I saw you—” I licked my dry lips. I haven’t had anything to drink or eat for hours, and it was starting to catch up. “I thought you died.”

He retrieved his phone and started tapping on it. I thought he wouldn’t answer but after a few minutes, he started talking.

“Half of my body is burned.” My eyes moved to his scarred cheek. My heart ached for him. He was so bitter and wrapped up in his thirst for revenge that he threwusaway. The chance to be happy. “Do you know how fire feels against your skin?”

I shook my head, swallowing the lump in my throat. The terror of that night rushed to the forefront of my mind. The pain. My desperate attempts to revive him. Months of searching for something to keep me going.

And all along, he hid. From me. From the enemies he created.

“You left me wide open and vulnerable,” I said, keeping my voice even. It’d do me no good to go into attack mode. “The Yakuza were particularly eager to get to me.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, they’ve always been eager to take down the Omertà. The only problem is that they’d continue the tradition, but only in their own favor. Rather than eliminating all those fucking families.”

“Why do you hate them all so much?”

He glared at me. “First, that old fucker Konstantin snatched my mother so he’d take her for himself. Then, he killed my father and my mother. In front of me. He destroyed my life. Killed my family. What should I do? Let him go?”

“But the old man is dead,” I pointed out.

He snickered. “But his legacy isn’t. I won’t rest until they’re all dead.”

So much hatred. So many lies. So much hurt.

And for what? For something that neither one of them could control. They were both kids. They both suffered. They both lost a mother. Growing up under Illias’ father wasn’t easy. For Christ’s sake, Illias killed his own father.

“You’re taking this too far, Adrian.”

He leapt to his feet and was in my face in my next breath. I had never seen so much rage and hate on his face. That beautiful face that I swooned over each time he saved me in high school. Each time he called me pipsqueak, regardless of how much I objected.

“Too far!” he shouted, his hot breath on my face. “I saw my parents murdered in front of me. I lost everything. EVERYTHING. I was abused, beaten, and starved under my foster parents. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? Spoiled little princess, sheltered by her big brothers.”

My heart drummed fast in fear, cracking my ribcage with each beat. The man in front of me wasn’t who I thought. It couldn’t be. Then his scent registered.

I blinked, then stared at him wide-eyed. I even leaned in and inhaled deeply. He didn’t smell how I remembered. There was no hint of citrus and sandalwood scent. There was no hint of my old Adrian.

“We could have been happy, Adrian,” I whispered, my heart thundering. “We could have had the world. Instead, you chose revenge over that. Revenge over us.”

Something shattered in his eyes. Maybe my words hurt him. Maybe there was still a chance at saving him. Not for me. It was too late for that. There was no more us. But for himself.

It was one thing that the world got wrong about us, the Nikolaevs. They thought us unhinged, slightly mad, cruel even. But we had soft hearts. We cared too much.

“Adrian, please–”

I didn’t get to finish my statement. He pushed me hard and I fell back against the dirty seat.

“It’s too late,” he spat, then stood up as if he couldn’t stand to be around me.

Pain rushed through me. Not the physical kind but the one that you couldn’t put a band aid on. It was raw and real. My bottom lip trembled. Tremors shook my soul.